Chapter Nineteen:
Joelle
Work was now a daily thing, Carrie started giving me six hour shifts for six days a week at my request. I realized that there was no other job for me, this is what I loved to do and I felt welcome there. They understood that I hardly talked, and the familiarity when I walked through the door was what made me feel at home. And every day for the past three weeks had been a constant reminder as to why I said no to going on tour with Zayn. It was for my own happiness.
"Jo! My cousin's kid is in town and he's your age… I think you two would get along very well!" Luke caught up with me at the end of my shift, as I was grabbing my bag and coat.
Immediately I shook my head, smiling slightly at him. They didn't know about Zayn, there was no reason for my radio family to know. We got paid to dig into celebrities lives, and I didn't want it to become a publicity thing. What even was there to know about him and I, anyway? We hadn't talked in forever and I was sure that he had already forgotten about me. I was back to being simply Joelle Parker, and he was back to being Zayn Malik. Not the girl and boy who held hands and talked about useless things until two am. Once again I was the twenty-one year old who hardly uttered a word and always had headphones in and he was once again the popstar who knew he could get any girl in the world without even trying. Our fantasy was gone and it was back to reality for us.
"Aw, not even going to give it a shot?" He tried again, though it was all in good fun. I knew that he would never actually set me up with anyone, he was smarter than that.
Again, I shook my head.
"At least I tried! Are you coming in early tomorrow? Neva is interviewing Selena Gomez, I think." Luke handed me my grey jacket.
"Thanks. No, I think I'll skip out. And I gotta go, my brother's here to pick me up. Bye, Luke." I strung the sentences together, making it sound more like a run-on than four separate sentences but Luke seemed to be accustomed to that since he smiled and went back to reading his magazine.
The air outside was a chilly temperature, and I cursed that I only had on a thin grey jacket. Zayn's jacket was back home, hidden in my closet behind the many band t-shirts that I happened to own. I never wore them out, but I enjoyed having them. Just like Zayn's jacket. I liked wearing it, though, I just felt uncomfortable letting myself be so… vulnerable. Love wasn't something I ever eagerly looked for, I didn't like becoming attached to people. My family were the only people I knew I loved, and they were the only ones who knew why I had this issue. I had let Zayn in and I had been regretting it ever since he left for tour.
The texts were sweet, and they came often. They made me smile, that he thought to text me good morning or that he missed me or that he had started to buy peppermint coffee. I just couldn't bring myself to reply to any of them. It was like I was giving in to the world if I did. It was somewhere in the back of my mind, that I had gone against myself when I said yes to Zayn.
I knew that he traveled for a living. I knew that he was a popular person. I knew that he came with a lot of baggage (granted, so did I). I knew that he wouldn't be there forever. I knew that there was a possibility of me falling in love.
